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Not to discount this fact much, but there’s a reason that I optimise my interviews for weeding out liars.

Tech tests on DS&A are fine, I guess, but usually you can sus a person out if you’re technical enough after 30 minutes of talking about previous projects and their level of involvement.

Typically I ask more and more questions about it until they can’t answer, if they try to BS me once they’ve reached their level of incompetence then they're immediately disqualified no matter how good they are in other areas.

I’d rather take a weaker person who doesn’t try to masquerade than a strong person who will.

That’s fair enough, but from a candidate’s perspective most interviewers just want people who can BS effectively. They don’t want to train new hires in their particular stack. They want a ready-made candidate who already has “experience” in X Y Z W A B C.

Call it tragedy of the commons, but being honest is not an optimal way to play the game.

I wouldn't like to work in a place where most people lied to get a job. May be if I would be desperate to find a job, I'd lie as well, but software developer is a hot place now and it shouldn't be too hard to find adequate people IMO.

It’s not good for anybody, but it is some kind of game theoretic equilibrium whereby the hiring machinery is incentivized to find candidates who are good fits for a company’s stack, and candidates are incentivized to present themselves to be such.

The way to solve it is to make the hiring process independent of experience with a particular stack and just hire engineers with good fundamentals, which is what FAANGs do by necessity (because their stack is proprietary), but others don’t want to do because they are afraid it would be too expensive.

I should probably say that I’m in Europe. Things may be different in SV.

>I wouldn't like to work in a place where most people lied to get a job.

"A place where most people lied to get a (tech) job", is the world. And the world is the only place that has jobs.

Software is hot only in the sense that there are “jobs” available. Whether or not those jobs are good or pay well is another factor.

Do you really think everyone has a spot at FAANG-etc? They don’t - I know because I work at them and we reject so many people at the on-site stage.

> reject so many people at the on-site stage.

About how many percent?

What could be ways to find out sooner that they're not the best person for the job? (What about doing half the interviews remotely?)

I'm kind of in a middle ground. I'm honest about what's on there, but what is truth one person is a lie from another. For example, I didn't have specific numbers for what my ICs were, but people like to see context, so I mentioned I did x and y for a company that did such and such in revenue that year, and that on the outside, my code seems to still be powering some of those sales. But honestly, if a colleague at that company asked why I lied about x, I'd just say "Really? My bad, what was I mistaking that for?" because quite frankly I don't remember acutely what specific component I wrote JavaScript for in a huge complex system 6 years ago. It's not that important to begin with, and I only keep the high level details archived in memory.

For example, I might remember working on it, but maybe what I actually did at the time was tested it extensively, or investigated a performance issue, or even collaborated on solving some problem in that specific bit. If I look at the code, I couldn't tell you what my code looked like at that time. There no evidence aside from commits that I did or didn't work on it, and so there's a good chance that either of us are right. Either way, I don't care, it's a trite issue. I got fired from that job anyway and list it on my resume as experience, which it was, but I don't say anything about what I stopped working there. Doesn't make it invalid and it's none of an interviewers business.

>And that is why we all have to go through onerous tech interviews, despite listing our experience on our resumes.

I don’t mean to burst your bubble, but these type of people have no problem studying leetcode for a few weeks. Sorry to say.

In fact, these are the exactly the kind of people that the LC process is designed to filter for.

How is studying programming considered cheating?

Their point is that just because someone can do leetcode does not mean they can program well, and they may too just be faking it to get a job they aren't qualified for.

I don't know how one can study leetcode and fail to learn to program better.

After all, I learned chemistry, physics, math, mechanics, thermodynamics, etc., by working problem sets.

In my opinion "program better" (or actually better at system modeling)

requires way more time, way more examples, way more code written.

I believe that in order to be "somewhat decent" at leetcode (not top level competitor)

you just need to learn theory, techniques, tricks and get some practice.

Meanwhile in order to get better at system modeling you need to model a lot of systems from scratch, change them and see how your initial design supported that refactor part

You need to be aware of various approaches / architectures, yada yada

And generally spend a lot of time thinking about how it'll affect readability or easiness to get into the project for new ppl, scalability, extensibility, etc.

So, in generally I believe that leetcode is just learn theory, practice everything you learned and go ahead and do 50 / 100 tasks

If you fail, then you can check answers and learn from them

meanwhile there are no correct answers for system modeling.

Additionally for leetcode you have sets with tasks to practice, meanwhile the "real" system modeling experience comes from real projects where requirements are being thrown and changed by somebody else whenever he/she wants

____________

>I don't know how one can study leetcode and fail to learn to program better.

I don't see how even hundreds of hours on leetcode would make you better at OOP, system modeling, building abstractions.

> I don't see how even hundreds of hours on leetcode would make you better at OOP, system modeling, building abstractions.

Because you know the foundations.

Knowing how a compiler works all the way down makes me a better programmer. Knowing assembler makes me a better high level language programmer. Knowing in detail how a car works makes me a better driver. Knowing how electricity works at the low level prevented a very costly mistake by the electrician who was wiring it (he had no idea). Knowing chemistry prevented a very costly mistake by the roofer of my house.

More about algorithm questions vs system modeling:

I'm thinking that

1) getting good at algorithms takes less time, than getting good at system modeling. — One will see one's mistakes sooner, within minutes, compared to system modeling, in which case one would need to stay at a workplace for months or years, to see how a system design eventually turned out to be a mistake?

But 2) it's also harder to get good at hard algorithm questions — most people won't get that good at it, also with weeks and months of practice. And they still wouldn't have any real chance in a Google coding interview.

And in that way, algorithm questions make sense?

They give more information about the person's ability to think and learn — good for the company —

and takes less time for the candidate to get good at (weeks or months — compared to working for years?), good for the candidate?

(I'm someone else than GP)

PS. I wonder what the electrician was up to? :- ) and the other one

Out of curiosity, what knowledge about electricity and chemistry did you have that prevented the mistakes?

I don't know how one can study leetcode and fail to learn to program better.

LC can help you program "better" -- but in a narrow, "just tell me what I need to know to pass the friggen' test" sense.

To learn how to really program better - you'll have to start building things. And reading books. Meaning, you know, "hard" books. Not books about how to get past the LC barrier. And these things known as "papers", and man pages, and specifications, and the raw source code as written by people much, much better than you (even though 99.99 percent of it has nothing to do with LC problems). And by getting down there, in the trenches, and working with people who are plainly better than you are, and who you can almost barely keep up with.

That's how you get to be better. Not by ... studying to pass the test.

Reading coworkers resume or promo packet (more awkward) and finding stuff that you worked on is an instant classic I feel everybody goes through at least once

> When I first started interviewing people I assumed everyone > wrote their resumes just like me: Honest, accurate, erring > on the side of humble, avoiding exaggeration of my abilities.

You may be missing the point of a resume.

There are really two goals: 1. Get you through the door, so you can get an Informational with the Hiring Manager. This means passing the Recruiter and (usually) the Hiring Manager's 30-60 second screen while looking at 50 candidates. Often an email or a Linked In Message is more effective than a CV at this.

2. Sufficiently and credibly explain your background to the interviewers who will be reading it 5 minutes before the interview.

The CV needs to present well and be credible.

I think you are missing the point of the GP post. Yes, a resume/CV is a marketing document designed to get you past an initial screen, and to tell an interviewer what you are about. But, ideally (and it's certainly not too much to ask), such a document should also be accurate. "Marketing" and "lies" should theoretically be disjoint sets.

Unfortunately, the fact that so many people outright lie on their resumes means that people who don't are at a disadvantage.

Resume truth isn't the same as spoken truth.

I worked at FedEx ground for two weeks in college, but one week was in June and the next was in July, so while that was relevant experience, it went on my resume with June-July and it may have looked like I worked there for two months.

It's common to only list the final position one held, so someone who was in the mailroom for 5 years, somehow got into a deskjob for two weeks and then left is going to show 5 years at the company, deskjob (unless they're looking for a new mailroom gig). It's true, but misleading. Of course, some people go beyond that and claim things they didn't actually do, etc.

After a certain point of interviewing candidates, I stopped reading their resumes. All of the interesting stuff I would ask about never had details behind it, because it was fluffed up, but never enough to disqualify a candidate either.

> I learned the hard way that you can’t really trust what people put on their resumes. A lot of people are accurate and honest. Many people are actually too humble or often just bad at selling themselves, so you have to read between the lines and dig for their biggest achievements.

What exactly separates accurate/honest from humble/bad at selling oneself according to you?

We don’t have to do it, companies are just gun shy about bad hires. They could easily accept everyone resume unread and remove people only if they failed to live up to expectations for an example of an alternative

When a company is going to invest half a million bucks in a new hire, they're going to do what they can to determine in advance if the hire is going to work out.

Most likely, but we still shouldn't assume its a property of the universe. Its a choice they are making and so the consequences good or bad should be attributed to them

When you are investing $500,000 of your own money, are you going to check it out thoroughly first?

When they invest $500,000 of their own money and it makes millions, do they decline the profit? Their behavior is perfectly rational, but still ultimately a choice they make, and both the good and bad are a result of that.

Unless you are going to argue that they aren't rational adults with agency of their own, in which case I would question letting them decide anything at all

I don't see what that has to do with what I wrote.

Tbh I don’t know what your comments have to do with mine either?

I was responding to the phrase “have to”, and pointing out that they don’t “have to” do this. Then you brought up things like people investing a lot of their money? It still doesn’t change that it’s a choice. They could be investing the gdp of Canada and making rational decisions around the money, but it is still ultimately a choice

I didn't write "have to". Perhaps you are replying to someone else?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31902260

This is the original comment I replied to, I thought you were asking a clarifying question and tried to reiterate my main point. My apologies if there was a confusion

That comment,

> we still shouldn't assume its a property of the universe

is actually a bit funny I think. One could post that comment as a reply to almost anything :-)

And then see how they interpret it and how they react

Yea, in my critique, it’s probably not a sentence that triggers people towards good conversation, but I’m not really sure how to broach the concept that everyone has free will when people are legitimating discussing how the people in charge of businesses have no choice and have to do something bad.

Tbh the defense of most business leaders sounds like someone defending a rabid dog or a killer robot’s action’s.

I really can’t understand how some people can simultaneously believe that execs and founders deserve the outsized compensation for making all the decisions critical to the business, while simultaneously believing in this neo-Calvinist philosophy where the elite _have_ to fuck over everyone for their own benefit and it’s ridiculous to think that they could chose ethics over money

Like, do they have free will and so you can make the argument that their choices led to greater profit and they deserve a big cut, or are they simple tiny dancers on the wind of fate who can’t do anything of their own accord which (if you were being consistent) means that they brought nothing of benefit to the business and therefore should get none of the profit?

I have trouble with this argument because on the other hand, once they’ve got good people that are consistently producing valuable output, they penny pinch and give tiny below inflation raises (if at al)… and promptly lose these people to competitors and have to hire all over again.

Companies that do a poor job of hiring and retention tend to fail. It's a self-correcting process.

Government, on the other hand, just increases the budget.

Companies could buy crappy software, could spend millions in unnecessary offices, expenses for unnecessary dinners, offsites, whatever, on crappy salesmen who can probably cost them more in the long run, etc It’s a single person, if you identify that he can’t make it within the first 3 months, he will never cost you 500k.

> if you identify that he can’t make it within the first 3 months, he will never cost you 500k.

It'll take longer than that just for the new employee to get up to speed, let alone contribute much and prove his worth.

Also consider that the benefits package is often worth 50% of the salary or more. Then there are the taxes the employer pays on employment, the cost of the facility and equipment for the person, etc.

Then there are all the expensive and costly problems if the person is in a protected class. The employer has to prove they can't do the job, which can take a year or more.

I am on the humble side in my resume and I have landed a job that pays well, but for which I am completely overqualified for.

no, you go through them so they can pay you less, and you are the tool used to accomplish this.

also, you should never assume people lie on their resume. before you know it you will carry that bias into every interview. if i was your manager and i knew what you just wrote, i would find someone else to interview people.